WASHINGTON — It began as a pilot program, but now D.C.’s Smartbike program is peddling toward a huge expansion.

By summer, the D.C. Department of Transportation will have expanded the current Smartbike system from 10 racks to 50 racks.

“We are already seeing that the vast amount of usage is commuting,” DDOT Director Gabe Klein tells WTOP. “This will be a pretty drastic expansion of the program, and this is what we set out to do when we launched it.”

The expansion will bring the total number of bikes on the city’s streets to around 500.

3 Responses to “D.C.’s Smartbike Expanding”

brad says:

That’s good news for people like me who travel to DC frequently on business…the hotel I like to use is a long, long walk from the nearest Metro and I don’t like taking the bus. The one barrier for people like me, though, is the helmet issue. I like to travel light, and packing a bike helmet into my carry-on luggage on the plane is a hassle. I won’t ride a bike without wearing a helmet. I suppose I could find a bike shop in DC and rent a helmet or better yet buy an extra one and ask one of my colleagues to keep it for me at the office there for when I’m in town.